


Cloud Nine

by bendy_quill



Series: FenHawke Week 2016 [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-27
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-16 12:16:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5828254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bendy_quill/pseuds/bendy_quill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Isabela helps in more ways than one and none of which she expects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cloud Nine

**Author's Note:**

> Happy FenHawke week everybody! This particular fic is for the theme of friends! Fenris and Hawke's relationship through the eyes of their friends, although to be fair, this is mostly about Isabela! I hope you enjoy! If you want to know more about Lydia Hawke, feel free to check out my writing blog [bendy-quill.tumblr.com](http://bendy-quill.tumblr.com/)!

She’s known Hawke for a few months at this point and she’s still a bit of an anomaly to her.

First, she’s a mage, an apostate, a mage living outside of a Circle and the Chantry’s authority. Being around her could be bad news, especially after some of the things she’s heard about the Knight-Commander.

Second, Hawke is friends with the strangest people. She walks around with the new Guard-Captain and never gets arrested for bending the laws. Somehow, she’s found friends in a Dalish blood mage and a former Grey Warden, which is just the fancy way to say more apostates. And finally, she’s friends with a deshyr of the dwarven Merchants Guild who’s not quite a criminal, but still lies about the same. She can’t even begin to wrap her head around the elf that can phase through people and rip their hearts out of their chests.

But what really surprises her about Lydia Hawke is the voluminous head of puffy hair. She’s seen a few women wear their hair in such ways, but usually clipped much shorter. Hawke's hair is big, _really_ big, and she hasn't seen hair that big since she was a little girl back in Rivain. When she meets Hawke’s family, she’s even more surprised; her mother wears her silver hair in meticulous knots and her brother has neatly braided rows. He looks especially handsome with that hair and she makes sure to tell him so. Hawke just watches the poor thing splutter and stammer over his words when she does.

“You with me, Isabela?”

She snaps her head towards Hawke standing close to the ledge, dark cloud of hair rustling in the cool sea breeze. Fenris and Aveline are on her flanks with eyes trained on the group of bandits just below them. They’ve been trying to figure out a way to get them for a while now, but the ledge overlooking them only has one path that leads down. While she’s sure she and the elf could make the jump, Hawke and Aveline will most certainly break something on the way down.

But it could work if they timed it just right.

“What if we dropped in from right here?” she suggests. Fenris and Aveline look at her with raised brows. “Fenris and I could stick the landing and start tearing through them while they’re distracted,” she points to the path that leads to the bandits, “and you and Aveline go around and get ‘em from behind!”

Hawke stays silent as she stares at the clearing and then to the path.

“It could work,” Aveline says.

“But it could also go wrong.” Fenris points to the two larger men wielding axes. “As soon as they see Hawke, they’ll converge on her. She is the greatest threat, therefore the first priority in a fight.”

She shrugs. “I can handle them. It’s just the two, yeah?”

“Oh,” he says. The look on his face isn’t completely incredulous, but Hawke does tilt her head at the small dig.

“ _Oh_?” They all look at Hawke, smug smile plastered on her face. “So I can’t handle two at once now?”

“I do not doubt your skill,” he responds, the corners of his lips twitching at the challenge behind her words, “but it just seemed like something to consider.”

“ _Uh-huh_. _Sure_.” Hawke turns to walk down the path and Aveline follows closely, shaking her head and sighing heavily.

She watches the way his eyes linger on Hawke before he slowly turns his attention back to the bandits below. He’s been doing that a lot lately— staring after Hawke with her back turned to him. She was there for the bloody battle in the alienage and the subsequent confrontation at his old master’s mansion. He made it very clear that he didn’t trust mages then and, for a moment, she thought he might have drawn his blade if Hawke didn’t adequately answer his demands. She doesn’t know what he’s been through or what he’s seen, but part of her completely felt for him and his pain.   

But then Hawke called him handsome and she watched as he spluttered over his words. It was cute to see him look so flustered, but just as soon as the confrontation began, it was over with a very charming compliment.

Hawke is very lax for an apostate, but spending years as a criminal will give a person a completely different perspective about the world. People will always make assumptions about others based on the most trivial things, so why worry about it? It’s a philosophy she can respect.

Fenris readies himself, body shifting low to the ground and steady hand gripping the hilt of his sword. She quickly moves into position next to him and waits for an opening.

* * *

“What?” is all she can think to say as she stands in Hawke’s door. The woman in question is furiously tugging at her hair with a sheepish looking Merrill standing behind her. Poor Merrill looks like she’s about to combust into piece with all that red in her cheeks. Half of Hawke’s hair is wildly sticking up in delightful poofs while the rest is braided into a mangled mess.

Hawke whips towards the door with a wild look on her face.

“Oh, hey, Isabela! Come on in!” she greets, words strained and completely exaggerated.

She carefully steps inside with eyes still trained on the tragically tangled tuft of hair. When she steps up to Hawke, she realizes that the mess is even worse than she thought. The braids at are far too thin for Hawke’s fingers to completely unravel; they look like little rat tails, poorly done ones at that. She reaches out to touch the impossibly thin braids and grimaces at the terrible work.

“What happened?” she asks.

Hawke throws her hands up with an exasperated sigh and lets them clap against her thighs. “The damn… I thought I could go out and let someone else take care of this instead of my mother. She’s getting old and can’t be standing up and trying to braid this mess all the time!”

She pushes some of her hair out of the way and grimaces when she sees more little braids buried inside.

“And Merrill?”

The elf in question clears her throat. “I thought I could help her undo some of it…”

But it clearly isn’t working out for either of them. Isabela sighs deeply; she shouldn’t be getting mixed up with this. Sure, she could get involved because she wants to help, but as soon as it’s over, Hawke will be hounding her for weeks trying to get her to help with it again. Taking care of all of this is something she hasn’t had to do in years and she has no desire to start adding extra responsibilities to her already full plate.

“You should’ve known better than to go to those snobs up in Hightown,” she chastises, patting the bit of hair the two managed to unravel, “ _those_ women don’t know anything about all this.”

Hawke groans, one hand reaching up to rub her forehead— oh, she must have the worst headache trying to deal with all of this! “You sound just like my mother.”

And she should.

She holds her hand out to Merrill, fingers crooking at the object in her hands. Merrill clasps the comb with both hands, but realizes that she’s asking for it and hands it over.

“Don’t let it get to your head,” she warns as she carefully works the thin teeth into the braid and pulls, “I’m just feeling a little generous today.”

* * *

She makes regular trips to Hawke’s house every week to give her poor mother a break.

Even the older women in Rivain used to wait entire days before they would start working on some eager young girl’s head. It isn’t as if they don’t want to do the best job, it’s just that there’s so much to work with and it does bad things to the knees as a person gets older. It takes all day to finish with this hair, but standing for all that time is nothing but agony on the joints.

And to think, Leandra had to handle _three_ children with this thick hair by herself.

She agrees to help Hawke, but it’s not like she’s doing this for free. Hawke has a lot of hair to work with and she’s at least going to get something out of this.

“Are you girls hungry?” Leandra calls from the kitchen.

Food is always a good form of payment.

Whatever Leandra’s making in the kitchen has had her stomach rumbling at her for the past few minutes. The sweet and sugary smell makes her think it might be cookies, but Leandra doesn’t seem like the sort who would make sweets in the middle of the day.

She weaves the last bit of Hawke’s braid together and knots the small elastic band as tight as she can. With a heaving sigh, she steps back and surveys her progress— half of Hawke’s head is neatly braided into thin and shimmering black ropes that cascade down her back. The other half still hangs over her shoulder in a wet clump.

She’s been at this for an hour.

“You hungry?” Hawke asks.

“Very, but we both know walking away is not an option with all this still wet.”

Hawke reaches up and touches the clump of soggy hair. “I can handle this. Go ahead.”

She can’t leave her like this, not with so much hair left. It’ll be another hour until she finishes the other half and she could definitely wait until then. Besides, if she stops for too long, she won’t have the same momentum to keep her going through the next hour.

“I got a few good minutes left,” she reaches out and parts a small section of Hawke’s hair. She starts at the root deep in her scalp and parts the section into three smaller strands. Deft fingers weave the strands into a thin braid, pulling a bit at her scalp but coming together in a neat braid. She reaches out and grabs another elastic band to twist around the end of the finished braid.

Her stomach grumbles loud enough for both women to hear it.

“Isabela—”

“Don’t you start with me,” she sternly warns. “I’m halfway through and—”

“And I appreciate it,” Hawke says, hands coming up to swat hers away, “but what kind of friend would I be if I let you go hungry fussing over me?” Hawke motions towards the kitchen. “Go get some food— I will be right here when you get back! I can handle some of this on my own.”

All she has to do is finish the other half and she could get something to eat later. If she leaves it alone for too long, it’s going to tangle and there will be no salvaging anything if that happens. But she watches as Hawke reaches up and parts her hair to start a new braid. Slowly, she backs out of the room and turns on her heel to walk into the kitchen.

Leandra made cookies after all.

* * *

Part of her feels a little stab of betrayal in her heart when she walks in and sees Fenris leaning over Hawke with his hands buried in her hair. His fingers look slick with oil and his head is bowed close to her face as he gently massages the rivers of brown skin zigzagging through the rows on her head. There’s a serene expression on Hawke’s face as she sits patiently with closed eyes and slightly parted lips.

She knew she would be late but she didn’t expect Fenris to—

Her face heats up as she slowly realizes what’s going on. His strong fingers, rough and calloused from handling such a heavy blade, are brushing and sliding between the tight braids and drawing little gasps from Hawke. He’s leaning so close with parted lips just hovering above her own, and she is sitting perfectly still as if anticipating, no, _beckoning_ the gentle touch and hungry lips.

He can’t grip her hair, not with those tight braids woven into Hawke’s head. But he finds a way by slotting his fingers within the parts instead. He’s guiding her, sweet smell of coconut and fresh earth probably enveloping his hands, and he uses his leverage to pull her slowly, surely, closer and closer and—

“Isabela!” Hawke cries out, voice pitched and surprised as if she’s just been caught doing something positively salacious. Fenris looks her way, fingers still pressed into the shiny braids and eyes wide as he registers the intruder.

She feels as just as flustered as they both look.

* * *

She doesn’t miss the way he still looks after her with thoughtful green eyes. He’s always following her around; watches her stoop down to pet an animal, glances at her when she’s throwing her magic around and flashes to her side when she misses an enemy she didn’t see before—

His eyes are everywhere, but nowhere all in the same. She takes up every bit of space those brilliant green eyes can spare. His eyes slide along the expanse of her wide shoulders and down the thick muscle lining her arms, slip down the dip in her back and over the curve of her rounded hips, and descend down her impossibly long legs hiding just underneath her loose robes.

The journey is familiar to her— she’s made it herself. Merrill isn’t as discreet about it, but she attributes that more to her awkwardness than her skill. Anders is the only one that’s relatively open about it. He and Hawke have a close relationship, and they spend a lot of time together. More times than not, she’s walked into Hawke’s mansion to find them nestled in her library and meticulously scanning the little pamphlets he hands out in Darktown. She thought Anders had the best chance between all of them; he’s attractive, connects with her on things she’s interested in, and he can be a smooth talker when he applies himself.

She couldn’t have been more wrong.

Fenris turns his gaze away when Hawke collects her purchase and turns to rejoin them. When she stops near Fenris, she carefully pats the shapely puffs on either side of her head.

* * *

The dry streaks on her face and puffy eyes tell her everything she needs to know.

She’s seen this before, has been in this exact situation a number of times herself. Even after the shit Luis put her through, she still clung to the hope that one day, she’d meet someone that she could trust completely. Maybe they could lavish her with love and affection, or maybe they would be a close and trusted friend. They could travel together and explore places uncharted and unseen by anyone but each other. They could cut their slice of the world and she could find a place, somewhere where she isn’t an asset or a quick fuck or an exotic dream, but a place where she can just be _Isabela_ in all her essence.

It was wishful thinking at best because a world full of greed and cruelty truly stops for no one. People don’t care about anything but themselves and they will walk all over anyone they want. They take what doesn’t belong to them and blame their victims for letting it happen, never mind the blood staining their otherwise meticulous hands. They ignore pain when it is so evident and only ask for it to stop when it starts to inconvenience them.

This world is cruel and no one will save anyone from the pain.

Hawke sobs pitifully on her shoulder, tufts of dry hair tickling her just under her chin.

* * *

She pounds on the door to his mansion because, damn him, he’s locked it for once. This is a terrible idea, but she couldn’t think of anything else. It took hours for Hawke to let it all out and go to sleep. The woman had been crying the whole day, maybe even the entire night before when he just up and left her there. Hawke cared about him, she could see it in the way she laughed and smiled at him. He buttered her up and just used her like she was nothing. She’s absolutely livid and she’ll be damned before she lets him get away with this.

The door wrenches open and the strong smell of alcohol actually hits her like a fist in the face. She recoils with one hand coming up to cover her nose. Her eyes meet his and the usually shimmering green irises are dull, and dry, and red. He looks miserable, like he hasn’t washed or slept in a long time. There are no tears on his face, but if she arrived earlier, maybe she would have seen them as he turned into this awful mess.

“What?” comes the late and very gruff answer. After spending as much time in the company of less than savory people, she thought she would have had a good grasp on people and their motivations by now. He looks pitiful with red-rimmed eyes and that deflated stance as he leans quite heavily on the frame of the door. This isn’t a man that had his fill of the exotic quota; this is a man that looks like he had the joy beaten out of him by those terribly complicated feelings that come with caring about other people. He’s heartbroken, just as much so as the woman she sat with as she cried herself to sleep not an hour ago.

And she was completely prepared to show him what for.

She gets drunk with him for the rest of the night instead.

* * *

“I was a fool, wasn’t I?” he mumbles pitifully.

She throws a hand over her poor eyes and turns away from the sunlight creeping into his windows. There was a reason why she didn’t drink Tevinter blends anymore.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” she answers truthfully. “I’m no better at this feelings stuff than anyone else. Too complicated, very messy.”

A silence carries between them and she tries to remember what day it is.

“What should I do?”

She says nothing at first, unsure of how to respond. It’s cruel the way emotions can leave a person so broken, even more so when these emotions come from deep seated fears. When things are taken so much and so often, the fear of losing increases and overwhelms through time. She’s lost a lot in her life; friends, family, things that once meant a great deal to her. But he was a slave and what was taken from him, she can’t even begin to fathom. He does well to hide it, but she can see it all over and hear it in his voice; he was scared, so scared that he only did what he knew could stop the fear. He ran.

And she can’t blame him because she’s been there too.

“I don’t know,” she repeats, “but one day, you will.”

* * *

“‘But it was the sound of the bells and the flutter of the ribbons in the air that stopped her…’”

The soft scratch of the comb in her hair carries through the silence. She slowly unfurls the coil of hair and lets it unravel. Bit by bit, she parts the hair and watches it come undone.

Her eyes dart up towards Fenris, eyebrows furled as he squints at the open book in front of him.

“Try to sound it out,” Hawke offers helpfully. He leans closer to the book and mouths the word quietly, lips molding around the syllables as he thinks carefully.

“G… ga… galla—gallivanting…” he finally says.

Hawke hums her approval. “Think you could try just a bit more?”

Her eyes dart back down to Hawke’s head.

* * *

It has never been this quiet between them. With personalities that clash on a regular basis, to be sitting in a room with no arguing at all is strange. Instead, they all sit in different corners of Hawke’s foyer with somber expressions and long stares. They are all dressed in dark clothing, some wearing black and others substituting with something as equally appropriate.

The throb in her forehead has her reaching up to rub the pain away. She tries not to close her eyes for the grotesque face of a woman that once offered her a place in this home appears and makes the bitter taste of bile rise in her throat. Leandra was so beautiful with brown eyes as dark as the night and as bright as the stars in the night sky. She walked with her head held high and a grace that made some of the wealthy older women of Hightown positively uncomfortable. Her silver hair was meticulously coiled and jutted from her head like small caps of snowy mountains.

Hawke looks— looked just like Leandra. But after what that _thing_ did to her…

He took _everything_ from her in those last moments. The snowy peaks of her knots were ripped away, shaven, and clipped, and with a heated comb taken to it. Even her face and her skin— Leandra isn’t even recognizable under the hasty stitches holding the rotting flesh together. He peeled it all off, her brown skin, her smile, her entire body and face, and he covered it with pieces of rotting corpse parts and a sheet of pale skin that wasn’t her own. 

She shouldn’t have to be sending her mother off like this. She shouldn’t be forced to look at the horrific violation her mother endured. Her body, her soul, everything was stripped from her for no reason other than it suited someone else’s whim.

A sharp click of a shoe reverberates through the room and everyone looks up to see Hawke on top of her steps. She looks tired, so incredibly tired and pale in the face. Dark bags surround her dull eyes and her entire body looks heavy under the long black dress engulfing her. Not a trace of the glorious hair on her head can be seen for it hides under a carefully tied scarf, one in which she recognizes as Leandra’s gift to her daughter not a month before her death.

But standing next to Hawke on the top of her steps is Fenris, shoulders hunched and eyes trained on her. She never saw him walk through the door this morning; did he come here the night before?

Hawke closes her eyes and the shaky breath she takes makes her throat close up. Fenris leans close to her and whispers something low and for her ears only. He stretches out his hand and she takes it, one foot slowly rising and taking the first step down the stairs.

* * *

It was a mistake. She got what she needed and everything was going exactly the way it should. Castillon would have his relic soon and all she needed to do was keep it by her side. This is what she wanted and she knew this was the way it was going to go as soon as she found it again. She told Hawke this was what was going to happen.

_“I’ll help you get the book if it means it will save you, ‘Bela.”_

She needed the book and Hawke knew that. Castillon was angry at her and she has intimate knowledge of what happens to people that disobey him. This wasn’t about right and wrong, this was about survival and Hawke gave her word. Her life meant enough to Hawke to let her walk away with the relic and she didn’t have to let her. She could have just as easily taken it from her to keep for her own.

_“One at a time! We’ll deal with Isabela’s issue first.”_

The lick of the flames nearly catches her hair and a strong hand pushes her back. Hawke swings her staff with the force of a greatsword, blades of razor sharp ice crackling and flying across the wide hall, just narrowly missing the Arishok. He rushes her instantly, twin great axes coming up to quickly to hack at her no doubt. She doesn’t miss a beat, just raises a hand and forces a heavy clump of earth into the Arishok’s face.

There is rage in her eyes, blood on her face, and her braids whip around wildly as she twists her staff around her shoulders to grip in one hand. She rushes the stumbling Arishok with lightning and fire enveloping her entire body.

It was a mistake.

* * *

“What?” she asks belligerently.

Fenris just smiles in an oddly friendly way and takes the seat in front of her. She can’t stand to look at him or his pretty green eyes or his gaudy armor right now. All she wants to do is drink in peace. He stops her as she lifts the bottle to her lips and she shoots a threatening look his way.

“Hawke’s been looking for you,” he says.

She scoffs and wrenches the bottle from his hands to take a long swig. The bottle hits the wood hard when she slams it back down. “What, she forget where the Hanged Man is?”

He shakes his head. “She thought you might be angry.”

She rears on him, nostrils flaring and angrily jabbing a finger at him with her rage. “Of course I am! I fucking had it— the book was in my hands, in my bloody palms, and she gives it back! Castillon is still out there, he’s still looking for me and when he finds out that the qunari have it back, he’s going to kill me!”

Fenris looks down at his hands with a thoughtful look on his face. “She didn’t give it back.”

“I know I’m drunk, but I definitely remember being there,” she chides.

“But she didn’t give the book back to the qunari.” He looks up at her. “ _You_ did. She let you take the book and you brought it back despite that. You did this of your own volition, Isabela.”

Of course. All of this is her fault after all. Castillon’s shipment, freeing those people, stealing the book… All of this is her doing and she can’t seem to stop digging the hole further and further into the ground.

Her mother knew it then, probably anticipated it well before she converted to the Qun. She was trouble from the start and brought nothing but mess after mess onto the doorstep. But in the face of conversion, with the threat of losing the freedom that let her love and live, she couldn’t bring herself to follow her mother. Maybe that’s why she gave her to Luis, so that he might teach her structure and discipline.

Some trade that was because all he brought her was pain. All he wanted was a trophy, a fucking pet to prance around the room and look pretty for him. His friends and his associates, every one of them looked at her the same, like she was fucking meat on display. She wasn’t her own with him, she was a thing to be gawked at and everyday was a struggle to find some part of herself deep within that could be salvaged and protected from their rapaciousness.

Zevran was a blessing to her and one she’s still not sure if she deserved. But even so, she never stopped being a thing to other people. She had her uses and they were pilfered when it was needed. But the moment she even thought to demand respect of her personhood, they pushed back and said she was asking for too much. All she wanted to do was to _be_ , but nothing she had done has allowed her that.

And then she met Hawke. Part of her was insanely jealous of her for all the pride she has in herself. She answers to no one but herself and every major source of power in this shithole city is seething with rage about that. A mage, dark skinned and with big hair, unafraid of the powers that be and unconcerned with anyone else’s approval save her own.

Part of her was so jealous of Hawke, but all of her had never felt so fucking powerful around someone else. She felt hope, felt a place, felt something that made her feel like she belonged and was someone to be loved and not something to be had.

Hawke let her run with the relic. She looked her dead in the eye and told her that she could take the book if it meant saving her life. And in the face of that, she gave the book back, endangered herself for a reason she couldn’t quite grasp. Then to make matters worse, Hawke, a mere mage, stood tall in the face of the battle hardened Arishok when he demanded to take the thief along and told him, “ _Maker be damned if you think I’m going to let that happen!_ ”

She pushed back against the Arishok’s demands, memories of the brutality of her first marriage rushing back to her and fight-or-flight instincts kicking in, but she never expected a furious Hawke would physically push her behind her back and shield her with her own body.

This isn’t something she was used to; people caring about her and willing to risk themselves for her without question. She hasn’t done anything for Hawke, for anyone really, but she stood up for her without hesitation.

“Castillon will kill me,” she repeats.

A hand grips her shoulder and she didn’t realize that she was so tense. She looks up slowly, eyes meeting steady brown eyes and a glorious cloud of dark puffy hair.

“No. He won’t.”

And oddly enough, she _believes_ her.

* * *

“I believe I owe you an apology.”

“For?”

Fenris finally manages to slip the tuft of dark hair into the elastic band and loops it three more times. He steps back, hands on his hips and breathes deep. She rises to take his place and he shifts out of the way quickly. He flops into the chair she was sitting in and crosses his ankles as he slouches back.

“Back in the Hanged Man,” he says, “before we found Castillon.”

“Oh?”

She parts the hair and weaves it into an easy braid, as thick and as neat as the grouping on the other half of her head. It isn’t news to her that he can do this; she saw his handiwork all those years ago. Having a partner to trade off with is helpful as well. Still takes them all day to finish, but they can share the work between each other instead.

“I realize that I made it sound like I was blaming you for what happened with the book.”

She ties off the end of the braid with an elastic band. “You weren’t?”

He shakes his head. “I meant to say that it was brave of you to come back. Hawke was prepared to face the consequences of letting you take it, but you came back for her. Even though you knew it would make you a target again, you chose to help her. It was… honorable of you to do so.”

She looks up at him, brow raised and sly smirk on her face. “You accusing me of being noble, Fenris?”

He chuckles. “I just thought to tell you that.”

She shakes her head and parts more hair, deft fingers weaving the section into another braid. Things have changed that much is certain. To find a friend, someone she can trust to stand up for her where others never even bothered. And to care so deeply about that friend that she’d be willing to risk everything just to keep them safe? This is completely new to her.

And she’s okay with that.

“I think I owe you an apology too,” she admits. Fenris tilts his head. “Three years ago, when you and Hawke… _you know_ … I showed up on your doorstep ready to kick your ass.”

He raises a brow. “ _Really_?”

“Yeah, _really_!” She twists some of the curly fringe around her finger as she gathers her thoughts. “It just— it touched a nerve seeing her like that. It was none of my business, but I just… I was just mad. So, sorry. I shouldn’t’ve gotten involved like that.”

He nods. “I should thank you for that.” She looks at him again and he chuckles at her expression. “You probably don’t remember but, you said something very important to me then.”

She wracks her brain trying to think of what he means. “I did?”

He nods. “You said that, one day,” his gaze shifts to Hawke, and there is love in those eyes, something fiercer than she has even seen before, “I’d know what to do with myself. And you were right.”

It’s scary to see how much they’ve changed since then. But it feels good to be so different now. It must be a latent magical talent of Hawke’s; giving people the chance to find something deep within themselves that they didn’t even know was there.

“Well, that’s me,” she admits, “I’m a helper.”

A comfortable silence settles over them and everything feels so fine right now.

“Aw! Finally kissed and made up, eh?” Hawke teases.

She clicks her tongue.

“Based on how tangled _this_ is,” she playfully tugs her hair, “I’d say we aren’t the _only_ ones.”

Fenris’s nervous cough has the two of them laughing hysterically.


End file.
